"For 25 years, he’s been bringing Tiger Woods to the masses"

Before last week’s PNC Challenge, Michael Bamberger profiled the end of NBC golf director Doug Grabert’s 25 years. It’s a name we don’t hear as often as the producers Tommy Roy and Tom Randolph, but one equally as important to that well-oiled machine.

Of particular fun is Grabert reliving the 2008 U.S. Open broadcast, for which NBC won an Emmy.

NBC had a camera on Rocco. Another on Tiger. Another on his ball. Another on the hole. Another, ground level, showing the green and the amphitheater around it. Another on a tall, high swinging arm called a jib. Go to three, go to four, go to Dog, go to jib. Grabert, every bit as focused as Woods, instructing his technical director, Mark Causey, what buttons to press, for our viewing pleasure. Bapabapabababop. Posterity would come later.

Dog was Mike Wimberly. The plumber can come back. The reporter can make another call. In live TV you’ve got one chance to get it right. That broadcast won NBC Sports an Emmy. The putt had no right to go in, it was so wobbly, and it had every right, it was struck so purely. Rocco’s face said it all: I knew he’d make it. Tiger’s face said more: This is what I live for. Grabert, too.

The USGA has posted the full final round broadcast here. And here is the portion of the telecast described in Bamberger’s piece. Spoiler, he makes it again.

The unforgettable final round of the 2008 U.S. Open, with Tiger Woods, Rocco Mediate, Lee Westwood and others battling for the title at Torrey Pines (Calif.)...

"Will fans attend the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in person?"

The San Diego Union Tribune’s David Garrick notes the incredible economic impact made by the 2008 U.S. Open and considers if next June’s event will have fans.

As two vaccines now get distributed, I was surprised no mention was made of what role that might play in who can attend (the story was filed 8 days ago).

Sink, the USGA’s senior director for the U.S. Open, said the organization is hopeful they can go with the scenario where there are fans and hospitality tents and all the other hoopla that was here in 2008.

But they have created four other scenarios.

One includes no fans at all, just essential personnel, TV crews and a bare bones team of volunteers. That was the approach in September when the U.S. Open was played just north of New York City.

Another scenario would allow some limited guests, but no general admissions fans.

A third option would allow 25 percent capacity, a fourth would allow 50 percent capacity, and the fifth would be a normal U.S. Open with all the bells and whistles.

It feels like major sports leagues and live music promoters are all waiting to see who might make the first move to throw out the idea of a “vaccinated-only” clause for attendance.

Rocco On Tiger Signing His Photo: "That's just the way he conducts things. That's not him."

I finally got around to watching Rocco Mediate's appearance on Feherty and it was as much fun as you'd expect when you put two maniacs in a room in front of cameras.

Thankfully this clip of Mediate talking about asking Tiger to personalize a photo and pin sheet was posted online.

There's also a seven-minute outtake online where Rocco talks about the state of the game, the First Tee (genius but "where do they go"?), growing up on muni's and the worst rule in golf.

DVR Alert: Rocco On Feherty

I ran into David Feherty strolling his second home--the DFW airport--and asked him how the Rocco show Monday was and he reported that Mediate was in great spirits. Hardly surprising that those two could yammer up storm about the '08 US Open, Arnold Palmer, the long putter and other stuff, as evidenced by the preview clip.

The show first airs Monday, May 13 at 10 pm ET.

Rocco On Tiger's Swing: "It doesn't produce the shots he used to hit"

Steve DiMeglio looks at the state of Tiger's game and also features a nice mini-retrospective of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines where Woods dueled with Rocco Mediate.

Four-plus years later, Mediate still is in awe of Woods but has questions about the state of his mechanics.

" … "I love what Tiger has done for the game... I've always had a ridiculous amount of respect for what he has done. All the crap on the other side I don't care about. I don't know what happened; only he knows what happened."

Mediate says something else happened – to Woods' swing. While the jury is still out on whether Woods can again become the dominant force in golf, Mediate is a tad skeptical.

"Nothing he did ever surprised me. He's that good. But he can't do it anymore because his golf swing is different. It doesn't produce the shots he used to hit," Mediate says. "Do I think he's finished winning majors? No. Does he have as much desire? Yes. But you could ask him to hit any shot blindfolded back in the day and he could. Now he can't. I know what I'm seeing. I know what I saw before. And it's not the same.

" … I know the things outside of golf hurt him immensely, and the injuries have hurt him ... If he does find the swing again, it's game over.

John Atkinson, RIP

Sad news about the first ever participant in the Golf Digest Challenge passes away nearly a year to the day he played Torrey Pines.

"But the answer is, you don't earn that money back."

In one of those wonderful golfing traditions, David Fay made his annual reiteration that the USGA is committed to an 18-hole playoff. But this year there's a twist. We get to find out just what those 18 holes cost thanks to Doug Ferguson's report:

Fay said the USGA had to spend nearly $120,000 for an extra day of buses, $45,000 for the smaller buses, $30,000 for parking, $60,000 for security to stay an extra night and day. Throw in lunches for bus drivers, media, volunteers, parking for the media and travel costs for the USGA staff.

"When you round it up, and throw in the ever popular 'miscellaneous,' it came out to $513,000," he said. "Sure, we hope to see a few more hot dogs and beers and shirts. But the answer is, you don't earn that money back."

"Torrey Pines became the USGA's finest hour, a slam-dunk triumph with a twist of irony for an organization criticized for its old-world mentality."

I don't know if having been blessed to have seen all but one hole in person or if was John Hawkins doing such a superb job, but I'm leaning toward the latter for the sheer joy I found in reading his Tiger-Rocco-Torrey story for Golf World's Newsmakers issue.

The clippings below are for my little archives here just in case the story were to disappear. But just read the whole thing, I suspect you'll savor it.

In a large part because it stuck to the 18-hole format, Torrey Pines became the USGA's finest hour, a slam-dunk triumph with a twist of irony for an organization criticized for its old-world mentality. Woods-Mediate was an extended-play encore with everything on the line, a fifth round that turned a superb tournament into one for the ages.

"Having done this for 20 years, I can say that it was my favorite broadcasting day," says NBC on-course analyst Mark Rolfing. "I've done a lot of good ones, but that day was special. The playoff had everything. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced." The sharp turns in momentum gave it character and amplified the crescendo effect."

And...

On the way to her departure gate, Joan Fay ran into a bunch of NBC employees also flying back to New York but on a different airline. "They asked why she wasn't on their flight," David says. "Joan tells them, 'I'm on JetBlue, and they've got TVs in every seat.' All at once, the NBC people jump up and make a mad dash for the JetBlue ticket counter. Her flight went from almost empty to absolutely booked."

The PGA Tour arranged for a charter from San Diego to Hartford, site of the Travelers Championship that week. About 30 players were on the flight, plus their wives, kids and a few caddies. "We all had TVs, and the timing was pretty much perfect," says Lee Janzen. "We took off around 8:30, and a half-hour later, the playoff started. It seemed like everybody on the plane was pulling for Rocco."

And the still astounding numbers...

It was 2:30 p.m. on the East Coast, 11:30 a.m. local time, and the entire country, or so it seemed, had stopped to watch a golf tournament. The USGA offered live streaming video of the playoff on its website -- the full-day audience of 2.3 million viewers and 615,000 concurrent streams are by far the largest numbers ever generated by a sporting event on the Internet.

"The fact that it was a Monday and people had to work obviously helped," Davis says. "We were told it actually slowed down Internet service worldwide in terms of [available] bandwidth."

ESPN's two hours of coverage produced a rating of 4.2, which was 35 percent higher than the previous record for a golf tournament shown on cable. NBC, meanwhile, generated a whopping 7.6/20 share with its telecast of the back nine, a 90-percent increase over the 2001 U.S. Open playoff between Retief Goosen and Mark Brooks.

"The stroke that followed will go down as the greatest final-hole putt in the history of major-championship golf."

This passage from Jaime Diaz's definitive account of the Tiger Woods knee saga would generate some fun debate, and since the news has been so dark lately...

The stroke that followed will go down as the greatest final-hole putt in the history of major-championship golf. There are plenty of candidates: grinding mid-rangers by Bobby Jones at Winged Foot, Payne Stewart at Pinehurst, Gary Player, Mark O'Meara and Phil Mickelson at Augusta, Seve Ballesteros at St. Andrews; no-brainer bombs by Jerry Barber at Olympia Fields, Hale Irwin at Medinah and Costantino Rocca at St. Andrews. But none of them surpassed Woods for the blend of setting, situation and reaction. And only Jones, arguably, had as much disappointment to face by missing. Never in golf has such a dramatically set stage had such a fulfilling resolution. As a final validation of a true stroke at the moment of truth, a close-up, slow-motion replay revealed that the alignment line on Woods' ball never wiggled until it fell into the hole.

I'm biased because I was standing there and thought the whole thing was pretty swell, but does Jaime have it right? Greatest final hole putt?

"Tiger's drives were worse than Phil's, yet finished in better spots."

James Corrigan talks to Dave Pelz about Phil Mickelson's performance at Torrey Pines and the short game guru offers an interesting theory on the difference between Phil and Tiger's, uh, luck.

"I give Tiger all the credit in the world but I'm a stats guy," Pelz said at the opening of one of his renowned short-game schools at Killeen Castle in Co Meath. "I look at Mickelson's worst three drives and he made two doubles and a bogey and then I look at Tiger's worst three drives and he made eagle, birdie, par. Tiger's three-under, Phil's five-over. Tiger's drives were worse than Phil's, yet finished in better spots.

"When Phil hit his bad three woods they went in the deep six-inch rough; when Tiger hit his bad ones they went into the next fairway or the trampled-down dry dirt. So if you're going to miss, miss big and have a unique set of circumstances when your knee hurts so bad before the tournament that all you do in the build-up is putt all day, every day and go on to make 75 footers, 50 footers, 40 footers...

"That actually might not be a bad way to do it," he adds. "I mentioned it to Phil. Of course, it's not just luck. It is lucky when a 75-footer hits the hole and goes in, but it's not lucky that he hits it so near to the hole. It might have gone eight foot past but he probably wouldn't have three-putted as he was putting so fine.

"Both Opens need to introduce a multi-tiered entry-fee system whereby tour players are charged a sum they may think twice about relinquishing so easily."

John Huggan talks to agent Brian Marchbank, who helps explain the WD disease that keeps hitting the U.S. Open and Open Championship international qualifiers.

I'm not quite buying this from David Fay in year three of the WD shenanigans.

"I want to know what the players are thinking," said Fay. "Why are they entering in the first place? Has something happened? Or are we doing something wrong?"

"It took DeBock five tries; the reporter finally found it on his 15th."

Not to dwell excessively on the U.S. Open with THE Open lurking, but several moments keep flashing before my eyes and none sticks out more than Tiger's putt on 18 Sunday. I remember looking at downhill putts here after learning that front right would be the likely location, and it just never looked like an easy putt to read with the slope coming off the bunker.

Well, Ed Zieralski reports that others have had that putt in mind and tried it out.

 A student of U.S. Open history with a terrific collection of memorabilia from past events, Torrey Pines head pro Joe DeBock was prodded by a reporter to return to the South's 18th green on June 18, two days after Woods beat Rocco Mediate in a thrilling 19-hole playoff.

Of all the putts Woods made during the Open, the reporter told DeBock he was most impressed with a 15-footer that had about eight inches of right-to-left break, which Woods gingerly jarred for birdie to tie Mediate after 72 holes of regulation. DeBock found the hole placement used for Sunday's final round, and he and the reporter took turns trying to make it.

It took DeBock five tries; the reporter finally found it on his 15th.

“It was a bet for the city of San Diego, because the city didn't have the money to put up for this bet"

While I enjoyed Brent Schrotenboer and Eleanor Yang Su's look at the complex relationship between The Friends of Torrey Pines and the city of San Diego that left the city out of profiting from the U.S. Open, it was hard not to wonder why this question wasn't raised before the Open.

And while I'm happy for Jay Rains and the "Friends" who pulled off a stunning success in the face of many hurdles, it was always quite clear that appearance of conflict was there. Only now that the Open was a huge success do the city advocates want a piece of the pie. I say, too late!

Anyway, the key numbers, which would seem to back up the Sports Business Journal estimate of a $50 million profit, which David Fay refuted last week. 

The USGA projected in November that it would generate about $58.3 million in revenues from the 2008 Open, according to a city permit application filed by the association. That includes ticket sales, hospitality, concessions and merchandise. Television rights are not included. Sports Business Journal recently approximated those at $40 million and suggested total revenue might approach $100 million.

The USGA estimated its expenses at $51.5 million.

To sum up the projected revenues:

 For the USGA, at least $58.3 million, plus TV deals.

 For the Friends, $5.37 million from rent and hospitality shares, interest and a $950,000 reimbursement from the city for some of the course renovations.

 For the city, about $500,000 in rent from the Friends, plus cost recovery up to $350,000 and another $350,000 for other golf course work.

The city also derived other benefits, many of them hard to quantify, such as five days of national television exposure. Additionally, the Friends said they would give the city $300,000 to $500,000 to improve the irrigation system at its golf course in Balboa Park.